Results tagged “historicist”

Of the possible futures for those in the current race to succeed David Miller as mayor of Toronto, there is one distinction that the victor will not likely achieve unless death or scandal strike immediately: the shortest term in office. Those vying for that title have generally been caretakers brought in to fill out a term, as happened when Fred Beavis filled in for Mayor David Crombie in 1978 when the latter ran for federal office. The winner of the short-term sweepstakes is David Breakenridge Read, who owed his fifty-day tour of duty to a police scandal. Make any jokes you want, but, as a study of the city’s early high officials noted, it would “be an injustice to Read to belittle his talents, abilities, and accomplishments because of his being somewhat a cipher as Mayor.” more ›

On July 10, 1936, a full page of articles and ads in the Toronto Globe celebrated the opening of the Park Plaza Hotel (now the Park Hyatt South) at the corner of Bloor West and Avenue, which contained a mix of hotel rooms, apartments, and thirty thousand square feet of office space accessible by a separate elevator. Decorated by the world-famous W. and J. Sloane Company, the tasteful interior design self-consciously sought to emulate the "well-bred atmosphere of sophisticated New York." The furniture was ultra-modern. Service promised to be second-to-none because general manager Charles V. Delahunt demanded rigid qualifications from prospective staff, many of whom were drawn from fine hotels across North America and Europe. more ›

“Towering triumphantly on the northern shore of the majestic Lake Ontario, Toronto…presents in her commercial history a record of advancement, an epitome of industrial progress and a chapter in itself redundant of individual and collective instances of energy and enterprise to which few communities of the New World can rightly lay claim.” So opens the introduction to Toronto Illustrated 1893, a guide to merchants and service providers in the Queen City that offers insight into familiar and forgotten titans of industry. Following a background sketch of the city’s history and economic development, profiles of bankers, corset manufacturers, chewing gum distributors, doctors, hoteliers, industrialists, and not-so-starving artists fill out the book. The profiles are fawning and often contain generic information that could apply to anyone (“one of our most deservedly popular and successful business enterprises”) but provide an interesting glimpse of the local business community during the "Naughty Nineties," including the four that follow. more ›

His sense of disappointment and failure must have been profound, fallen from the very peak of Canadian cultural life. The golden age of CBC radio drama, Boyd Neel recalled in Quest (December 1981), "was a veritable kingdom of dreams" presided over by Andrew Allan. As supervisor of Drama for CBC radio from 1943 to 1955, he "was radio drama's irascible and troubling prince." more ›

Question: how was your last ride on the TTC? Was it a relaxing experience marked by pleasant surroundings, easygoing staff, and amiable fellow passengers, or was it a traumatic event that left you in a cranky mood once you arrived at your destination? If it was the latter, take heart. If a newspaper article we recently discovered from the late Victorian era is any indication, Torontonians have always had bones to pick when it comes to the behaviour of employees and fellow users of public transit. more ›

For as long as Toronto has been settled, Lake Ontario has been a source of winter recreation. As soon as the ice closed in, the harbour became crowded with skaters, sleighs bounding across the drifts, people curling, and men cultivating ice for shopkeepers' iceboxes. And local thrill-seekers—to paraphrase marine historian C.H.J. Snider—skimmed and swooped across the bay in iceboats. more ›

Crime knows no vacation. While many of us look to the holiday season for peace and good cheer, others find themselves on the wrong side of the law. For as long as inebriates have been hauled in for disturbing the peace or thieves have secured deeper-than-advertised discounts on Boxing Day specials, the police blotter has rarely rested during the closing weeks of the year. While the most sensational crimes garner headlines today, a century ago most of Toronto’s six battling daily newspapers published lengthy accounts of court proceedings no matter how small or unusual the charge. Fined a dollar for failing to secure your horse? Clumsy cab driving? Swearing in public? All of these misdemeanours earned you fifteen seconds of press infamy in 1909. more ›

"Toronto has been considerably excited," the Canadian Illustrated News reported on February 12, 1881, "by a battle royal between the employees of the Street Railway Company and the storekeepers on the line of the tramway." A sudden snowstorm that month left Toronto blanketed in white and led to a spirited altercation between employees of the Toronto Street Railway Company clearing the streetcar tracks and Yonge Street shopkeepers who took exception to the zeal with which they performed their task. According to the legislation that incorporated the Toronto Street Railway Company (TSR) in 1861, "when the accumulation of snow or ice on the railway shall be such to impede traffic, every means shall be used to clear the track." So whenever a deluge of snow disrupted transit service, streetcars were equipped with ploughs, and the company would even send out, in Adam Mayers' words, a veritable "army of men with shovels, brooms and pickaxes to keep snow off the switches" and keep them from freezing. more ›

How to introduce Toronto to tourists, 1970s style: more ›

For anyone observing from the House of Commons gallery in the early 1920s, the bitterness of the feud playing out on the Commons floor would've been plainly obvious. Trading places as prime minister and leader of the opposition—and then trading back again—in those years, Arthur Meighen, leader of the Conservative Party, and Liberal Leader Mackenzie King would quarrel furiously over minute details of legislation both trivial and important. more ›

Christmas shopping is upon us, which means it’s time for the claustrophobic to avoid approaching most of Toronto’s shopping malls. Yorkdale will be one of the busiest spots, as drivers try their best to avoid getting into a fender-bender with the twenty-seven other drivers fighting for a precious parking spot. The same scene probably played itself out when the mall opened forty-five years ago as an attempt to bring the diversity of downtown shopping to the suburbs, complete with modern conveniences, even if the mall no longer contains tenants like five-and-dime chains, display space for bathroom fixture manufacturers, or grocery stores. more ›

It is just one instance of what has become an enduring theme in Canadian culture: animosity towards Toronto. We All Hate Toronto—which the Star of June 19, 1948 called "a malice-edged bit of spoofing" when it was reprinted in Sinclair's A Play On Words & Other Radio Plays (J.M. Dent & Sons Limited, 1948)—was certainly not the first to poke fun at Toronto's quirks. But, giving expression to an existing sentiment, the play was broadcast at a significant moment in the city's—and the country's—artistic and economic development. It was one of a number of anti-Toronto cultural artefacts that appeared at the same time as Toronto assumed a greater role at the leading edge of the country's post-war economic boom. more ›

The success of Battle of the Blades has brought Maple Leaf Gardens back into the national spotlight. The show’s mix of glamour and excitement fits some of the visions Conn Smythe had for the building when it opened its doors to the public seventy-eight years ago this week. Built in an almost unimaginable span of five months, the building that became a temple for generations of hockey fans is a testament to the executives who used their persuasive skills to raise the necessary funds during the Great Depression. more ›

On September 10, 1939, Prime Minister Mackenzie King officially declared war on Germany. Toronto was impacted by the war almost immediately. Drawn by patriotism, adventure-seeking, or just the lure of a job after nearly a decade of the Great Depression, thousands of young Torontonians spilled into recruiting stations and from there into manning depots. In Bill McNeil's Voices of a War Remembered (Doubleday Canada Limited, 1991), Torontonian Ella Trow recalled how every family was touched by the Second World War. "My brothers and my husband went into the services," she wrote, "and most of my friends were in the same boat." more ›

Halloween has long provided an excuse for Torontonians to relax and cut loose their stiffer qualities for at least one day. Whether it’s infants dressed as garden vegetables and insects or downtown revellers dressed in outfits that can’t be mentioned in family publications, Toronto has long loved assuming disguises and participating in all of the accompanying rituals that go along with today. A flip through old local newspapers shows that pranks played a large role in past Halloweens, from harmless showoffs to destructive blazes. For better or worse, tricks were as equally important as the treats. more ›

University College has long been one of Toronto's most admired buildings. Its Gothic Revival style, inspired in part by the Romantic poets, impressed such distinguished nineteenth-century visitors as Anthony Trollope, Governor General Lord Dufferin, and Oscar Wilde. In Landmarks of Toronto (1893), John Ross Robertson called the University of Toronto building "the crowning architectural glory of Toronto." Perhaps befitting its moody architecture, University College is also home to one of the city's best-known ghost stories. Versions of the story differ, but each follows the same basic plot. more ›

Though the smell is more grilled sausage than ham and some of the lettuce may be shipped in from faraway destinations, the atmosphere evoked by this description of St. Lawrence Market from a 1976 Toronto Star profile still rings true. At the time those words were written, the market neared the end of a decade of rehabilitation that reflected changes in attitude towards historic properties in the city. The north side saw the old knock-it-down attitude at play, while the south was spared a date with a wrecking ball in favour of renovation. Otherwise, you might have enjoyed this morning’s mustard sample or peameal bacon sandwich in a building that lacked more than 150 years of history. more ›

In the name of reform, nineteenth-century politician Robert Baldwin was a thorn in the side of more than one governor of Upper Canada. As a result, he has been called a lot of names. One governor, Lord Sydenham, dubbed him "the most crotchety impracticable enthusiast I have ever had to deal with." Another called him "such an ass." Neither seems especially fitting given that Baldwin always carried himself with an impeccable, gentlemanly demeanour in his dogged efforts to undercut the governor's power to govern without need to consult with the local parliament. more ›

George McCullagh seemed to have it all: a rags-to-riches back story; a brash, cocky charm that appealed to financiers, politicians, and the public; a growing family; influence in the back rooms of government; and ownership of several Toronto daily newspapers. He even attempted to lead a crusade to change the nature of government that would enable him to fulfill his belief that he alone could improve the state of affairs for Canadians or at least the state of affairs for his friends in the mining industry. Ultimately all of this may have been too much for one body to handle. more ›

At the turn of the twentieth century, a number of prominent women in temperance unions, religious associations, and welfare societies realized that a way to achieve their objectives in reforming society and achieving equality of status was to seek their right to cast a ballot on election day. Through the tireless efforts of suffragettes, and the impact of the First World War, during which women assumed a range of traditionally male roles in factories, offices, and on sales floors, the women's movement achieved a measure of success by the war's close. Ontario women became entitled to vote in provincial elections on April 2, 1917—and entitled to run for office on April 24, 1919. more ›

For North York during the 1960s, the explosion in population and industry that the previous decade had seen showed no signs of stopping. By the end of the sixties, almost two hundred thousand people were added to the citizen roll. Quiet rural intersections saw farms and villages give way to apartment blocks, factories, schools, and shopping plazas. Traffic problems arose and required immediate solutions. The municipality's status changed from township to the more dignified "borough." more ›

Often referred to as Canada's first photojournalist, William James spent more than thirty years documenting Toronto and city life in all its varieties. An ever present, silent observer of a changing city, he was there to record the construction of public infrastructure and new buildings. James photographed the first airplane flights over the city and, a few years later, captured the first bird's eye photos (and moving pictures) of Toronto from the back of a biplane. He recorded the changing landscape of the city's outward expansion. But he was far more interested in capturing the city's inhabitants in informal, unposed moments, such as workmen going about their toil and children at play. He entered the drawing rooms of the elite and photographed the city's destitute. more ›

What were the ingredients needed to produce a Labour Day weekend in Toronto eighty years ago? A visit to the CNE? Check. Tourists crowding local highways? Check. A day at a beach? Check. Union members proudly marching in a parade wearing white suits and straw hats? Check. Controversy in the sporting world? Check. Rumours of a provincial election in the offing? Check. Economic worries? Not yet (wait a few weeks). Thieves with a penchant for stealing trousers? Check...?!? more ›

After a building boom altered the Toronto skyline over the course of the late 1920s, construction ground to a standstill during the Great Depression. Annual spending on construction, which had peaked at $51.5 million in 1928, dropped to a mere $4.5 million in 1933. The few projects that weren't cancelled or disrupted were initiated mostly by banks and insurance companies seeking symbolic structures that emphasized institutional stability through turbulent times and faith in an economic turnaround. more ›

Anyone crossing Adelaide Street between Jarvis and University on the morning of March 31, 1972, would have noticed a slow procession moving in the opposite direction of the street’s normal traffic flow. A crowd had gathered to follow the move of Campbell House, a century-and-a-half-old building that was spared a date with a wrecking ball that other historic buildings in Toronto had experienced during the preceding decade. The relocation was due, as Joni Mitchell might have said, to one company’s desire to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. more ›

It's often been suggested that the Canadian National Exhibition—since its founding in 1879 as an instructional exhibition to promote the development of agriculture, industry, and the arts—has reflected the social development of an ever-changing country. As the CNE website notes [pdf]: "Developments brought on by new technology, changing values, and even Canada’s role in international affairs, have been well represented at the CNE." Its populist entertainments have similarly evolved. In its first twenty-five years, according to historian Keith Walden in Becoming Modern in Toronto (UTP, 1997), there was competitive tension between the instructional agricultural and industrial demonstrations and the more popular entertainments of the midway—which, in less enlightened times, included carnival sideshows with freaks, fake levitators, and exotica aimed at a more adult audience. In the years that followed, there continued to be no shortage of eclectic attractions—although with a greater emphasis on family entertainment. more ›

As he neared his sixtieth year, Roy Thomson had reached a crossroads. The newspaper baron’s publishing empire was entering the United States and Great Britain and he held the presidency of the Canadian Press. These accomplishments were tempered by the emptiness in his life created when his wife succumbed to cancer and by a sense that he had reached the limits of what he could do in the Canadian media business without repeating himself. As he noted in his autobiography After I Was Sixty: more ›

Taking to the stage on May 28, 1961, Cup Cake Cassidy punctuated the end of another of Toronto's notoriously prudish Sunday prohibitions with every shake of her hips. Under purple spotlights, the buxom burlesque star performed the bump-and-grind on the Lux Theatre's runway to the accompaniment of live musicians. In celebration of a new law, passed by council on May 23, that allowed theatrical performances on Sundays, the operator of the Lux, Elliott Abels (or Abells), flew Cassidy, one of the continent's most popular stripteasers and a regular performer in Toronto, in from the States for a special one-day, four-performance engagement. By her second show, a crowd of four hundred—including, the Globe reported, "a number of couples and more than a dozen women who entered individually and were well past 40." The whistling and stomping, the journalist added, reached "deafening proportions" as, bit by bit, the six-foot-tall brunette seductively shed her elaborate, jewelled gown. more ›

If you were a retailer looking to launch a new department store chain in the early 1960s, the discount market appeared to be the way to go. While Toronto did have one-off discounters (Honest Ed's) and lower-priced annexes of existing retailers (Eaton's), businessmen looked at the prosperity of American discounters like E.J. Korvette and saw potential for setting up similar chains in Canada. For several years after Towers opened its first store in Scarborough in the fall of 1960, discount chains with varying degrees of longevity made their debut around Metropolitan Toronto. One of the splashiest openings belonged to Sayvette, who promised to shake up the department store sector. In its two decades of retailing, Sayvette went from grandiose dreams and promising new retail approaches to dead weight on the balance sheet of one of the country’s largest food merchants. Along the way Sayvette experienced little profitability, speculation over its ownership, unrealized expansion plans, and a constant search for where it fit in the retail landscape. more ›

In 1921, the Ontario Department of Education selected Charles William Jefferys to illustrate George M. Wrong's Ontario Public School History of Canada, a textbook being published under Lorne Pierce's Ryerson Press imprint. Upon their first meeting, the English-born artist—whose family had bounced around the northeastern U.S. and Ontario before settling in Toronto around 1880—and Pierce, a former Methodist minister, hit it off immediately despite a gap in age of twenty-one years. In Pierce, Jefferys found a kindred spirit who shared his ambition to excite nationalist sentiment among Canadians. He wanted to popularize Canadian history as an epic and romantic story by bringing historical characters to life through his illustrations. The long friendship and collaboration between artist and publisher, which resulted in a number of books, proved so successful that Jefferys's images became instantly recognizable, Canadian icons that shaped more than one generation's understanding of Canadian nationalism. more ›